Fernando Alonso reflects on ‘new start of the championship’ for Aston Martin after first race with upgrades in Hungary

Fernando Alonso has given a positive reaction to Aston Martin’s first race in an upgraded car, with the Spaniard hopeful that the squad can experience a “new start of the championship” in the second half of the season following a more competitive outing at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The AMR26’s update package had displayed promise during the opening two days of action at the Hungaroring, Alonso having reached Q3 in Qualifying for the first time this campaign.

That performance continued into Sunday, with Lance Stroll crossing the line in P13 – marking his season-best result – ahead of Alonso in P14.

Quizzed afterwards on how the upgraded car had felt in the race – with Alonso looking to be in the mix during the early stages – the Spaniard responded: “I think it was good to feel again the competitiveness and I think especially at the beginning, I think we had the pace to follow more or less the midfields.

“That was good, and hopefully a good baseline to work with this new car.”

While the season now enters its summer break, there is more to come for Aston Martin when the campaign resumes – including further chassis updates, and an upgraded power unit at the Dutch Grand Prix in August.

Pushed on the fact that this marks one step of many during the rest of the year, Alonso said: “Yeah, exactly. Especially on the engine, obviously, we are looking forward to Zandvoort and trying to get a little bit more competitive in terms of straight-line speed, which is the race that we are in the mix now.

“We need that extra speed on the straight so, yeah, hopefully a new start of the championship for us basically in the second part.”

Stroll was also left encouraged by the car’s performance ahead of the updates planned during the next few months.

“We were in the mix with the midfield for the first time this year, so it was good,” the Canadian explained.

“We just have to keep pushing. I think we took a big step this weekend, so we just need to keep pushing.”